


loving you has consequences

by mind_boggling



Category: The Fosters (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13534251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mind_boggling/pseuds/mind_boggling
Summary: What if I don’t want it to be a one time thing?She’d shrugged it off, rolled over, and gone to sleep. But Ximena was awake in her mind, and Callie’s eyes bore into her eyelids as she willed for sleep that never came for a number of hours.





	loving you has consequences

**Author's Note:**

> fic request that i got on tumblr from a lovely anon!! my very extended rendition of ‘callie and ximena go on a date and because ximena can’t leave the church, callie sets up a little date in the church.’

Callie’s heart was pounding when she followed AJ barefoot into the Church. When she slammed the doors behind her, breath so short she felt lightheaded. Callie’s heart was pounding talking to Shiloh McCullen. When she stood at the microphone wondering whether she was about to humiliate herself, or spread the awareness she needed to. Callie’s heart was pounding when Ximena kissed her. When the kiss felt different, but a good different, and not like kissing Aaron. Or AJ. Or Wyatt.

Her hands shake as she stares at the different flavour chips on the store shelves in front of her. What she’s planning in her mind seems bizarre, and she wonders if Ximena will have even acknowledged it as much as she did. Think about it any time she was alone with her thoughts for a second or two. Wonder what it would be like to do it again, maybe even _wanting_ to do it again. 

Callie found her heart racing once again as she paces the aisles, throwing any sort of food suitable for a picnic into the basket on her arm. She remembers Ximena telling her what her favourite candy was at some point— she can’t pinpoint when. But it’s little things like that which she remembers, little things that she thought she had forgotten but spark up once again in times like these. 

It makes her smile, and takes the edge off her anxiety. 

By the time she’d paid and packed the snacks into a picnic hamper that Mariana had helped her dig out of the garage, Callie sat in her car outside the Church for a solid fifteen minutes before she gained the courage to go inside. Sure, her and Ximena had been talking over text since last week, still hyped about making _HuffPost_ , but all talks of their shared kiss were to a minimum. Ximena hadn’t brought it up, so Callie didn’t either. Instead, she put off meeting with Ximena for as long as possible til she wrapped her head around it.

It was the wrong thing to do, she knew that, and after talking to her Moms about the entire situation, they told her it was the wrong thing to do, too. Callie was reassured that it was probably a spur of the moment thing, and that was playing over and over in her head whenever her anxiety threatened to rise again, but also, it was okay if it wasn’t a one time thing. _Sure, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ximena_ , is what Mom joked, but Callie glared it off, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. 

It was a one time thing. A spur of the moment type thing. A heat of the excitement kiss. Just playing those phrases over in her head was enough to calm her out of being catatonic every second she was silence. But there was that little voice in the back of her head that Callie had been ignoring ever since. It started up when she lay in bed the evening after leaving Ximena in the Church for what felt like the hundredth time. The kiss still lingered on her lips slightly, and she found her fingers smoothing across the bumps engrained into her bottom lip every now and then. Replaying it, thinking about it over. And the little voice said this;

_What if I don’t want it to be a one time thing?_

She’d shrugged it off, rolled over, and gone to sleep. But Ximena was awake in her mind, and Callie’s eyes bore into her eyelids as she willed for sleep that never came for a number of hours. 

Pulling the keys from the ignition, Callie retreats from her car with the picnic hamper in hand. She’d been there enough times now to own a key to the back door; Nicole got sick of driving down there every time Callie wanted in. Her key and the unannounced entrance was to Callie’s advantage on this one occasion, though she was unsure of every step she took toward where Ximena had set up her art studio. But she forced herself to go on, forced herself to walk with pride and tell herself over and over that it was fine. Everything was fine.

She has her back to her when Callie arrives at the room, and she lingers by the door as she watches Ximena paint on a canvas. It’s a stain-glass window; obviously inspiration is short fused when you’re locked in a Church. But it’s still the most beautiful piece of art Callie’s ever seen— Ximena makes every piece so powerful in its own, so vibrant in colour and so meaningful in every brush stroke. Her work is laced with authenticity and a realism other artists can only dream of. 

“Callie!” She’s pulled from her thoughts quickly, too quickly, she’s backfiring— “I didn’t hear you come in, how long have you been standing there?” She’s walking over, and everything seems slow to her, Ximena’s steps are minutes not seconds, but Callie’s heart pounding in her ears is faster than ever. And she drops the picnic hamper, letting it fall to the floor. And when Ximena’s eyes avert to the loud crash of the hamper, Callie’s hands are on her face, pulling her closer until their lips meet. And she’s kissing her, again, despite all the doubts running through her mind, and it’s good— it’s _good_.

And Ximena kisses her back.

-/-

Of course Callie’s plan backfired, and she quickly excuses herself to go to the bathroom. 

Her heart in her mouth, she almost fled down the hallway at top speed and locked herself in a stall. Ximena followed her, like she guessed she would, calling her name down the hallway in distress. Callie eyed the bottom of the stall as she sat, knees against her chest on the closed seat, and Ximena’s boots appeared under the stall. She pressed her hands against the stall door and it clicked violently against the lock. “Callie, come on, open the door”

“I’m sorry,” Callie choked out as she felt the panic rise and stick in her throat. “I shouldn’t have done that, I don’t know what I was thinking I just-“ She stops herself as Ximena is silent and standstill, the door not moving and her feet glued to the spot where Callie’s eyes are fixated. Taking a breath, Callie doesn’t dare move. 

“You shouldn’t have?” Ximena asks, and Callie’s startled at the deflation in her tone as she speaks. “Well, uh, that’s kind of disappointing” She says, and Callie frowns wildly even when Ximena can’t see her. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Callie asks sheepishly, not moving from the toilet seat but shifting uncomfortably. It was a dumb place to hide, but the only place she could think of that Ximena wouldn’t be able to force her out of. The locked door between them was Callie’s safety net. 

“It means, that you beat me to it, in fact” Ximena says, and Callie’s standing from the stall and unlocking the door quickly. Her eyes wide, she stares at the sympathetic look on Ximena’s face as she stands in front of her in the stall. “That I wanted you to do it. That I hoped you wouldn’t freak out if I did it again, but it seems like you’ve got that covered” 

Callie is silent. She ponders her thoughts and Ximena even laughs a little when she doesn’t speak for so long. Her cheeks flush and she frowns. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Ximena says, a smile on her face. “You just look absolutely terrified, that’s all” She’s laughing again and it puts Callie at ease slightly. She’s still rigid, wooden on the spot in fear and that’s when Ximena takes her hands in her own and reassures her. “Callie, it’s okay” She says, pulling her towards her, Callie letting herself fall into their embrace. Ximena squeezes her tightly. “We don’t have to talk about anything now, not for however long you want. It’s okay. I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future, and you’re stuck visiting me til my DACA status renews; we have time. So much of it”

“I just wanted to do something nice,” Callie says, pulling out of the hug and staring at her feet in embarrassment. “I wanted to bring the outdoors to you and maybe give you some new inspiration for whatever you’re working on. You know, in the form of a picnic. I psyched myself up so much, for so long. That this was going to be it, that it was just going to work like it did with Aaron, or with AJ, but it’s different” 

“Different...good different?” Ximena asks, almost jokingly.

Now Callie smiles. “Of course” 

“I get it,” Ximena says, “It’s new for you. These feelings are new. But like I said, we have all the time in the world. We can talk about it when you’re ready” 

Callie rubs her thumb over Ximena’s knuckles as she realises their hands are still linked. She smiles, tight and watery. “Thank you”

“Now can we go and eat this picnic you bought?” Ximena asks. “I’m absolutely sick of Nicole’s multitudes of stews she brings me everyday” 

Callie laughs, and Ximena laughs with her, and they walk back to the studio hand in hand, tightly, warm, firm. Only letting go to eat, or drink out of the bottles of cranberry juice in the bottom of the hamper. Ximena reveals her findings of an older projector that she’d managed to play old movies on, and the two of them sit on the chequered blanket watching a foreign movie with subtitles that are cut off of the screen. It only makes them laugh, because they’re not really paying attention.

And when Ximena slips her hand into Callie’s like normal, her heart only skips for a few seconds, before lapsing into content. Lapsing into calm.

**Author's Note:**

>  **title:** song lyrics from ‘ _consequences_ ’ by _camila cabello_
> 
> find me elsewhere:
> 
>  **twitter:** vanlangs  
>  **tumblr:** bisexualieberman


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